ALUMINUM FOIL REFLECTIVITY

Problem Scenario

I think that I can’t get the aluminum foil wrinkled enough.
What if the light is not bright enough?

Broad Question

Will aluminum foil wrinkles reflect more light?

Specific Question

If aluminum foil is smooth, will the light sensor pick up more or less light?

Hypothesis

I don't think smooth aluminum foil reflects more light.

Variables

Independent Variable: Reflected light

Dependent Variable: Amount of wrinkles

Variables That Need To Be Controlled: Aluminum foil wrinkles

Controls: Projector
Computer
Pen/Paper/Notebook

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Light Sensor: A device that measures the amount of reflected light an object gives off.
Reflectivity: The ability of a surface to redirect the light hitting it.

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General Plan

1. Check the Light Sensor to make sure it is working.
2. The light lamp is lined up with mirror and tin foil.
3. I will turn on the light sensor.
4. I measured the amount of rays using the light sensor.
5. I entered this data in a table.

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
		Borrow from Science room and home	0
cardboard	1
mirror	2
light sensor	1
Computer	1
projector	1
Journal
Aluminum Foil	1

Detailed Procedure

I determined that light sensor was operational. I set up in order the mirror, aluminum foil, laptop, light sensor. I placed a smooth piece of aluminum foil on a cardboard backing. I lined up the projector to reflect on the aluminum foil. Then, I pointed the light sensor at the aluminum foil. This recorded the brightness of the reflection. I repeated this procedure using wrinkled and extremely wrinkled aluminum foil 3 times. I recorded all data on my data table in googledocs.

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Data Analysis

All Raw Data

smooth... wrinkled.... extremely wrinkled

180.4 .......437.2............. 345.4

Graphs

decrease size

Results... Wrinkled aluminum foil got the highest numbers.

Conclusion: My hypothesis stated that smooth aluminum foil will not reflect more light. Based on my data, I accept my hypothesis because the wrinkled tin foil reflected more light.

Discussion: My experiment showed that wrinkling aluminum foil prevents it from acting as a good mirror. My data shows that wrinkled aluminum foil reflects back more light.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

My experiment can benefit the community. Aluminum foil can increase the amount of light needed to grow plants. Aluminum plating is used in telescope mirrors. If I had used a white surface, mylor, and aluminum foil in my experiment, my data would have been more detailed, but the results would be the same.


References

Abstract

Reflectivity of aluminum foil can be measured using a light sensor. In this experiment, the amount of wrinkles in the aluminum foil affected the amount of light reflected. A smooth surface acts more like a mirror.